


Only love could heal our brokenness

by Someonewhosfunny



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Hotel Rooms, M/M, an attempt at banter, lame team breakfast
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-21
Updated: 2013-08-21
Packaged: 2017-12-24 04:47:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/935547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Someonewhosfunny/pseuds/Someonewhosfunny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set the night after the Confederations Cup Final versus Brazil and the next morning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Only love could heal our brokenness

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the quote:  
> "And in the end, we were all just humans, drunk on the idea that love, only love, could heal our brokenness." F. Scott Fitzgerald  
> to everyone who's ever read any of my stuff, I love you. You are so nice and kind and wonderful. Thank you.  
> Oh! And leave a comment if you wish! They give me the confidence to post new things :)

It was when Fernando found himself lying in bed, awake at an ungodly hour, that he let himself miss Sergio, crave his presence, even though they had seen each other a few hours ago and he was just down the hall. Those facts didn’t matter to him at the moment. His room was dark (so were his thoughts) and Fernando just wanted to cuddle with someone who could make everything better.  

It had been a rough day, losing the final to Brazil of all teams, and the defeat had worn them all down. Spain was a side of passion, unmatched even by their South American opposition, and losing hurt so much that it suffocated them. Lying in his bed, it felt to Fernando like one of the heavy plates at the gym had been placed square on his chest. He felt sick. The solid walls of the hotel room were blurring in his tired eyes and Fernando was convinced he would explode with restlessness. Cesar was sleeping soundly next to him, unaware of the turmoil poisoning his teammate’s brain, and Fernando was jealous of him.

After he’d had enough tossing and turning that he was nearly pulling his hair out, Fernando got up (didn’t even bother to change into real clothes) and walked down the hall in just his night socks and shorts. 

He knew Sergio would probably be awake, playing the game in his head over and over again. Today hadn’t been his best performance to say the least (he’d been over tired and over stressed and unwisely over played during the course of this tournament), but that was no reason to stay up all night drowning in guilt. No one on the team had played a good game, but to Sergio it didn’t matter. _He was to blame_.

(If Fernando were to ask 100 people, he bet none of them would be able to guess just how accountable Sergio felt for his team’s losses. He may act like he didn’t care, that he didn’t blame himself like Iker did or like Cristiano did, but behind his easy laugh and unaffected disposition, he was adamant that any unfavorable match was always _his_ fault.)   

It turned out that Fernando was right, because after only a few tentative knocks, Sergio came to the door, weary eyed, but not sleep ridden.

“Hola,” he murmured in a soft voice that had Fernando’s heart clenching.

Fernando didn’t answer, only stepped closer and pulled Sergio in for a hug, arms wrapping tightly around his waist and head nuzzling into the hollow of his neck. He breathed in the defender’s scent, the smell of vanilla hotel soap and detergent (the most expensive kind they sold likely, because Sergio wasn’t skimpy on anything. Even laundry detergent).

Like a reflex, Sergio wrapped his arms around Fernando’s neck and he stroked his short hair affectionately, calmingly, in a way that made Fernando press himself closer into the soft cotton fabric of Sergio’s shirt.

They stayed there, hugging in the hallway, until Sergio’s voice finally cut through the comforting silence.

“Come in,” he sighed. (But Fernando heard the silent _before someone sees us in_ his voice, because this moment between the two of them was private. Only theirs.)

“I don’t want to talk about today,” he said as soon as the door shut behind them, whispering as not to wake up the sleeping goalie in the far bed.

“Okay,” Fernando whispered back uncertainly. His voice was thick as he croaked out his first words in a while (maybe even the first words since the team boarded their bus back to the hotel).

To Sergio’s ears, he sounded slightly awkward. And while he often sounded that way, like he didn’t quite know what to say to people, Sergio had known Fernando too long, too _intimately_ , to feel this distant with him now. Everyone knew he was shy, but in this moment, it was like talking to a different Fernando. Not _Sergio’s_ Fernando, but the one on the pitch who was weary to take shots and unsure about challenging defenders. The man who had been kicked and bruised and shoved down. Fernando had never been that man in front of him before and Sergio didn’t like the hesitancy in him.  

In an attempt to coax his love out of his mood, he grabbed his hand and threaded their fingers together, tugging him down to sit on the bed with him.  

“ _Cariño_ ,” he purred, bringing up his free hand to trace the smattering of freckles on Fernando’s check bone. “I’m glad you’re here.”

He was. He wanted nothing more than to climb into bed with his lover and forget about everything else. He wanted to lose himself in Fernando. In his warmth. His love. His rare smiles that made wrinkles appear beside his shining eyes. He wanted to embrace this nightly setting (in a foreign hotel room with his best friend in the other bed) and let himself be vulnerable.

“I couldn’t sleep without you,” Fernando confessed, every last bit of hesitation melting under Sergio’s touch.

“You’re always looking for a way to get in my bed,” Sergio joked lightheartedly. “Tell me again why we aren’t sharing?”

Fernando sighed seriously and Sergio wanted to laugh at the way he sounded like a teacher explaining something again to a small child.

“Because Juan is with Guaje and I couldn’t leave Cesar alone. It’s his first major competition for the first team, you know? ”  

Sergio just rolled his eyes. “So the rumors are true. Cesar is your son now. Or do you consider yourself a babysitter?”

“I like Caesar,” Fernando answered earnestly. “And I don’t know. I figured you’d be rooming with Iker or your _little bird_ Jesus.”

“Oi, Fer. Try not to sound so jealous,” Sergio replied, grinning smugly at Fernando’s slight pout.

“I’m not _jealous_. I’m just pointing out the fact that you hover around him all the time.”

Sergio’s smugness faltered and his face took on a pensive quality. “He gets really homesick, Nando. You remember the Euro and all…”

“Of course I remember,” he cut in dismissively.

“Well anyway,” Sergio continued. “He’s with Silva, bonding over the Premier League or whatever. If you’d have just _requested_ to room with me like _always_ ,” he said with a pointed look, “then Iker would be with Xavi and I’d have you all to myself.” 

“Who says I want you to have me all to yourself?” Fernando challenged.

“Hmm.”

Sergio leaned over and kissed Fernando slowly, cupping the man’s cheek in his hand delicately. He pulled back slightly after the simple kiss, but Fernando closed the distance between them quickly. His mouth was eager, needy, and Sergio felt the desperation in it, had tasted it before. Fernando was looking for someone to make all of his thoughts go away and so was Sergio. They worked out like that, both fighting to overpower the rest of the world with their love. So he kissed him harder, raked his fingers over his scalp and made a sound of annoyance when he found he had nothing to grab onto. He missed the long blonde locks that he used to tangle his hands into and pull at.

The couple kissed like they were teenagers again, full of exploration and excitement. They were messy, with noses bumping and hands pulling. They couldn’t get enough of each other: their smell, their kiss, their warmth, their touch. All Sergio could think was _Fernando_. Nothing else mattered.

With time, their kisses became slower, lazier. There was a gentleness and maturity that was new. A tenderness. It had been months since they’d been together and now they could feel their time apart. As he caressed his lover, Sergio noticed Fernando’s jaw was strong, defined, and he couldn’t remember where along the lines Fernando had grown into such a man. But he should’ve seen it. On TV, on the pitch. He wasn’t a kid anymore. He was patient, unassuming, forgiving. He wasn’t fighting with the refs or the other players or lashing out at the press in magazines and interviews (not that he really ever had been doing that.) Fernando had matured into someone who worked hard and kept his head down, and now Sergio couldn’t help but feel left out in some ways. Because even though Fernando was only two years older, sometimes it felt like ten. And Sergio didn’t want to think about the pain, the disappointment with his career, that had made him grow up like he did.

He was still a child in some ways, though. He laughed like one and he talked like one sometimes. He had his bouts of maturity that made him seem so distant to Sergio, but it wasn’t all the time. He would laugh at Sergio’s silly antics and play video games and talk about _The Lord of the Rings_ to just about anyone who’d listen. Fernando still wore baseball caps and graphic tee shirts and beat up sneakers. Life hadn’t quite killed the child in him, just like it hadn’t killed the child in Sergio.

(And when the two of them were together, they felt like teenagers in love, like in almost a decade, they had never changed.)

Eventually, they found themselves lying under the covers.  Sergio was pressing light kisses to Fernando’s exposed chest. He moved up and dragged his lips over his sharp collar bone, licked a path up the pulsing vein in his neck. Fernando had his eyes closed and was running his finger tips down Sergio’s back, making him tingle all over. Sergio sucked sleepy love bites into his shoulder, his peck, and even shimmed down to discolor a spot on his hip. He got himself drunk off Fernando’s skin, a rich milky color that used to be golden brown with sun.

“I love you,” Fernando mumbled sleepily.

And Sergio lifted his head to look at him, leaned down to brush his swollen lips over his forehead.

“ _Te quiero hasta el cielo, y más_.”

They fell asleep with their legs tangled together and Fernando curled into Sergio’s side, head resting on the younger man’s chest. Both slept more soundly than they would have imagined following the massacre of a final that day, but neither even remembered the game when they finally closed their eyes.

The next morning, they awoke to a splash of cold water. Groggy and sputtering, both pairs of eyes searched for the cause: Iker, wearing one of his no nonsense expressions and standing at the end of their bed.

“¡Ay dios mio! We need to be downstairs for breakfast! ¡Vamos! Get your asses out of bed!”

They glared at Iker as they got out of bed, but it held no malice. He simple shook his head at them and walked out the door, telling them he’d meet them downstairs.

Ten minutes later, Sergio and Fernando were walking into the conferences room for breakfast. Late. Del Bosque sent them a look when they entered the room, but their teammates, who were busy chatting and eating, didn’t see them until they were almost sat down.

“Nice of you two to join us,” Pepe greeted loudly, winning a few laughs from the table.

Sergio just rolled his eyes and dropped into the open seat next to Iker, but Fernando turned red all the way to the tips of his ears.

“I thought you’d beaten me down this morning when your bed was empty, but it seems you had other reasons for being MIA,” Cesar teased, smirking devilishly as Fernando sat down across from him.

“At least they didn’t stay in _your_ room last night, _chico_ ,” Iker sighed before taking a bite of a muffin.

“Oh shut up,” Sergio scoffed, stealing a grape off of the plate Fernando had been making up and throwing it in his mouth. 

“Look the love birds are sharing food,” Cesc cooed from half way down the table, acting as if he hadn’t just taken one of Geri’s little muffins.

“That’s not the only thing they’re sharing,” Xavi deadpanned, glancing sideways at Fernando’s outfit.  

“Yeah, Nando. Your warm up jacket fits a little weird. Are you sure that’s yours?”

Cesc laughed delightedly and Cesar continued.

“I thought yours was still hanging in our room.”

The table erupted into laughter and Fernando chuckled good naturedly along with them, fighting a sheepish smile and blushing a bit.

“Alright, alright. I think that’s enough.”

The chatter at the table turned to other subjects, but everyone was glad to have been able to joke for a bit, to dispel the tense atmosphere following their big loss. It was comfortable for the team to banter like this. Normal.

When Juan glanced up at the couple a little while later, he saw that Sergio had wrapped his arm around Fernando casually as he was talking to Xavi. Even though Fernando was having his own conversation with Pepe, the pair always did things like this: touched absentmindedly just to remind each other they were there. Then they would turn to each other, whispering like gossiping school girls and smiling so brightly Juan thought the sun should be threatened by their radiance. It was moments like these that made Juan smiled down at his food, happy that his best friend was so happily in love.

Yes, the members of the team teased the couple endlessly, about how they held hands under the table sometimes or how they kissed in (nearly) empty corridors before games to wish each other good luck. They made crude jokes while they stretched in training and pretended to be scandalized by Sergio’s roaming hands, but at the end of the day, they were protective of what the two had together. Any of them would willingly step in front of a _too-intimate_ embrace on the pitch to cover them from watchful eyes. Whenever they were caught sleeping on the plane, Sergio’s head lolling onto Fernando’s shoulders, people would turn away, not in disgust, but from a feeling that the moment between them was too private for their eyes.

It made the team happy to see Fernando and Sergio in love. It had always been that way with them, but now it was even more important than ever. With Sergio coming from a disappointing season at Real Madrid and Fernando fighting to prove himself again to the world, the comfort of their love for one another kept them going; it was the only way they knew how to save themselves.

So if ever that love was threatened, any member of the Spanish National Team would be glad to dutifully step up and protect it with everything they had.

**Author's Note:**

> So this had a lot more dialogue than other Sernando things I've written. I hope the character's don't seem off. Also I'm awful with banter. I am very lame. It's kind of gimmicky and forced, but hopefully its okay! I can barely keep my eyes open from sleepiness so this is illiterate, I'm sorry.  
> I'm really happy I'm on a roll with writing in this fandom, though. I'm always inspired! I love it! I


End file.
